INTRODUCTION

The idea of ​​creating this project did not come to me by chance. My uncle recently visited Israel, where people widely use solar energy for household needs (lighting, heating houses, water, etc.). This topic interested me very much, and I decided to learn more about it and tried to create a model of a house illuminated using a solar panel (or solar module).

Solar battery- a household term used in colloquial speech or non-scientific press. Typically, the term “solar battery” refers to several combined photovoltaic converters (photocells) - semiconductor devices that directly convert solar energy into direct electric current.

History of the solar battery

Even in ancient times, people began to think about the possibilities of using solar energy. According to legend, the great Greek scientist Archimedes burned the enemy fleet that was besieging his hometown of Syracuse using a system of incendiary mirrors. It is known for certain that about 3000 years ago the Sultan's palace in Turkey was heated with water heated by solar energy. The ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean obtained table salt by evaporating sea water. However, most of all people were attracted to experiments with mirrors and magnifying glasses. The real “solar boom” began in the 18th century, when science, freed from the shackles of religious superstitions, moved forward by leaps and bounds. The first solar heaters appeared in France. The naturalist J. Buffon created a large concave mirror that focused the reflected sun rays at one point. This mirror was capable of quickly igniting dry wood at a distance of 68 meters on a clear day. Soon after this, the Swedish scientist N. Saussure built the first water heater. It was just a wooden box with a glass lid, but water poured into the simple device was heated by the sun to 88°C. In 1774, the great French scientist A. Lavoisier first used lenses to concentrate the thermal energy of the sun. Soon in England they polished a large biconvex glass that melted cast iron in three seconds and granite in a minute.

The first solar panels capable of converting solar energy into mechanical energy were built again in France. IN late XIX century at the World Exhibition in Paris, the inventor O. Mouchot demonstrated an insolator - a device that, using a mirror, focused rays on a steam boiler. The boiler powered a printing press that produced 500 copies of the newspaper per hour. A few years later, a similar device with a capacity of 15 horsepower was built in the USA.

Advantages of a solar battery

One of the main advantages of solar energy is its environmental friendliness. True, silicon compounds can cause little harm to the environment, but compared to the consequences of burning natural fuels, such damage is a drop in the bucket.

Semiconductor solar cells have a very important advantage - durability. Moreover, caring for them does not require particularly great knowledge from the staff. As a result, solar panels are becoming increasingly popular in industry and everyday life.

A few square meters of solar panels can easily solve all the energy problems of a small village. In countries with a lot of sunny days - the southern part of the USA, Spain, India, Saudi Arabia and others - solar power plants have been operating for a long time. Some of them reach quite impressive power.

Today, projects are already being developed to build solar power plants outside the atmosphere - where the sun's rays do not lose their energy. It is proposed to convert the radiation captured in Earth's orbit into another type of energy - microwaves - and then send it to Earth. All this will be learned fantastically, however modern technology makes it possible to implement such a project in the very near future.

Solar energy has been open for quite some time. But for a long time it was not considered as a major source of energy due to the high cost of production. Time passed and technology developed. Solar panels have become cheaper and have become a serious source of energy. Last year, worldwide, the total capacity of solar power plants exceeded 20 gigawatts! And this figure has doubled every three years since the beginning of this century. Only Russia is on the sidelines (but in vain, because the cost of electricity in the country is high).

Disadvantages of a solar battery

Depends on weather and time of day.

As a consequence, the need for energy accumulation.

High cost of construction.

The need to constantly clean the reflective surface from dust.

Heating the atmosphere above the power plant.

Where are solar panels made?

Nowadays the topic of development alternative ways obtaining energy could not be more relevant. Traditional sources are rapidly drying up and may be exhausted in just fifty years. And now energy resources are quite expensive and significantly affect the economies of many countries.

All this forces the inhabitants of our planet to look for new ways to obtain energy. And one of the most promising areas is obtaining solar energy. And this is quite natural. After all, it is the Sun that gives life to our planet and provides us with warmth and light. The sun warms all corners of the Earth, controls rivers and wind. Its rays grow at least one quadrillion tons of all kinds of plants, which, in turn, are food for animals.

The production of solar panels is growing at a breakneck pace, trying to keep up with rapidly growing demand. Moreover, at the same time, demand is growing for both industrial power plants and household consumption.

China is the leader in the production of solar panels. Almost a third (29%) of global production is produced here. At the same time, most of it is exported to the USA and Europe. It is noteworthy that Americans, being the largest consumer, produce only 6% of all solar panels, preferring to invest in promising large factories in China.

Japan and Germany are not far behind China, producing 22% and 20% of global production, respectively. Another leader is Taiwan – 11% of the market. All other countries produce significantly fewer solar panels.

Making a home

The idea of ​​using solar panels for people's needs attracted me so much that I decided to make a mock-up of a house out of cardboard, illuminated by an LED powered by a solar panel. To do this, I assembled a corresponding electrical circuit diagram. To be able to use lighting in cloudy weather and at night, it is possible to connect a battery to the circuit.

Recently, the study of alternative energy has become increasingly popular.

The urgency of environmental problems and the depletion of fossil fuel reserves annually involves an increasing number of countries in the search for renewable heat sources. One of these environmentally friendly, inexhaustible natural resources and is solar energy. Today, this is perhaps the most technologically advanced and promising sector of alternative energy.

The scope of possibilities in this area is truly limitless. Scientists have calculated that, in terms of resource capacity, twenty sunny days are equal to all the reserves of oil, coal and other organic fuels on the planet!

Solar battery as the most economical DC generator

Based on the process of generating solar energy into electrical energy, solar batteries were created, which in our time have become available to a wide consumer.

The operating principle of solar panels is based on the “photoelectric effect”.

The battery itself is a solar cell with many semiconductors on the surface. When interacting with sunlight, semiconductors begin “movements”, as a result of which electric current is generated.

It is worth noting that the power of one such panel is relatively small and directly depends on their geographical location, seasonality and even time of day. To increase efficiency, several panels are combined into modules, increasing the battery area. As a rule, the required area depends proportionally on the scale of the energy supply facility. Currently, the largest solar panels in the world are located in the Mojave Desert. Their power is 354 megawatts, and their occupied area is about 1000 hectares!

Benefits of using solar panels

The main and indisputable advantage of solar panels is their inexhaustible source of energy - the Sun! Users of this universal generator absolutely do not depend on the functioning of suppliers, rising prices or problems in the fuel industry.

The service life of most modern solar panels reaches 20 or even 40 years! Moreover, all equipment maintenance consists only of inspecting and cleaning the panels from organic debris.

Another undeniable advantage of this type of energy is its environmental friendliness. Since, when converted into electricity, solar energy does not pollute the air and does not affect the environment, we can confidently say that solar panels are a universal, profitable and safe source of electricity, as for most industrial enterprises, and for household needs!

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Like any other energy source, solar panels have their pros and cons. These should be carefully assessed before you begin selecting components for your home's heating and energy system. So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this energy source?

Pros of using solar panels

If we compare them with other energy sources that are autonomous and alternative, then solar panels can be considered the most efficient among them. To get enough energy from them, you need to combine several of these panels. Already from an area of ​​ten square meters you can get up to 1 kW of electricity. And for a house in which three or four people live, a combined battery panel with an area of ​​twenty square meters is quite suitable. During the day, in summer period this energy source is quite capable of powering the entire house. The panel's twice the size makes it possible to generate almost 500 kW of electricity per month from solar energy. This is enough even for a heating system.

Among other advantages of solar-powered batteries, it is worth noting their long service life. In addition, you will not be in any way dependent on possible problems that occur in the company supplying electricity. Remember, you probably had to sit without light just because there was a break in the power line or for some other reason. This simply cannot happen with solar panels. They do not require constant maintenance, and the likelihood of their breakdown is extremely low. After installing the system, you will no longer have to pay for electricity (and in some cases, for heating).

Disadvantages of Using Solar Powered Batteries

The number of shortcomings of these batteries is not so great. However, they are quite serious and may well force a person to refuse to purchase this energy source. First of all, these include the high price of these batteries. This means that they will pay off very for a long time. And people, as you know, are rarely willing to wait, and want to benefit from their purchase as soon as possible.

Compared to traditional energy sources, the efficiency of solar-powered batteries is quite low. Their power also leaves much to be desired, and therefore it is impossible to power devices that are very powerful from them.

The problem with the prices of these batteries is not so much that they are very high, but that this amount has to be paid all at once, rather than gradually. So, only those who have significant free funds and can spend them without compromising the current budget can afford to purchase such an alternative source of energy.

The battery owner will also have to ask other questions, for example, “How to synchronize the voltage from the batteries with the voltage coming from the local substation?” To do this, you will have to purchase special equipment, which will also result in additional costs.

In general, summarizing all of the above, we can say that at present only fairly wealthy owners of their own homes can benefit from this source of energy. They can calmly wait until the batteries pay for themselves.

Today, the advantages and disadvantages of solar panels allow us to talk about these energy sources as the most promising for the near future. Why is it so good and what allows us to talk about the advantages of batteries not only for the home, but also for large enterprises and factories. This article is intended not only to highlight all the advantages, but also to reveal disadvantages that are either kept silent by manufacturers or not disclosed upon sale.

Advantages of solar panels

• The very first plus is inexhaustibility and universal availability of energy source. The sun is present almost anywhere on the planet and in the near future, it is not going to disappear anywhere. If this source of energy disappears, then we will definitely not worry about where to get electricity from.

• The second advantage of solar panels is their environmental friendliness. Every consumer fighting for the health of his native planet considers it his duty to purchase environmentally friendly energy sources such as a windmill or, in our case, solar panels. But it’s the same here with electric cars. The batteries themselves are environmentally friendly, but during their production, as well as during the production of batteries, power plants and various conductors, toxic substances are used that pollute the environment.

• By the way, speaking of comparison with wind turbines, solar panels are much quieter. They don't make any sounds at all compared to noisy windmills.

• Batteries wear out very slowly, because there are no moving parts, unless you use drives in your system that turn the solar cells towards the energy source. However, even with such a system, solar panels last up to 25 years or even more. Only after this period, if the batteries are of high quality, their efficiency begins to decrease and gradually they need to be replaced with new ones. Who knows what technologies will exist in a quarter of a century? The following batteries may last you for the rest of your life.

• By installing such an energy source for your home, You won't think about the fact that your energy supplier will suddenly cut off your home for technical reasons. from energy supply. You are always your own boss. More precisely, its electricity supply system. There are no problems with sudden price increases or with energy transportation.

• Once your solar power plant has paid for itself, You will essentially receive free energy into your home. Of course, first, over a certain period, you need to recoup the investment.

• Another advantage of solar power plants is expandability. The question depends only on the area available to you. It is the modularity of the batteries that allows you to easily increase the power of the system if necessary. You just need to add new solar panels and power them into the system. Although these advantages of solar power plants are offset by a significant problem, namely the need to equip large areas. We are talking about square kilometers of solar cells.

• The solar panel does not consume any fuel, which means You are not dependent on fuel prices, just as you do not depend on fuel supplies. The advantages of solar panels are also a continuous supply of electricity.

Pros and cons of solar panels

Despite all the above advantages, batteries also have a lot of disadvantages that need to be assessed when choosing source of energy. It is important to understand all the disadvantages before purchasing, so that later you can be prepared for what you will have to face. For a number of reasons, solar panels are used more often as an auxiliary source, rather than as the main one.

• The very first drawback is the need for large initial investments, which are not required for a normal connection to the central power grid. Also, the payback period for investments in an electrical network with solar panels is very vague, because everything depends on factors that do not depend on the consumer.

• Low level of efficiency. One square meter An average performance solar panel produces only about 120 watts of power. This power is not enough even to work normally on a laptop. Solar panels have a significantly lower efficiency compared to traditional energy sources - about 14-15%. However, this drawback can be considered quite conditional, because new technologies are constantly increasing this indicator and development does not stand still, squeezing more and more energy efficiency out of the same areas.

• The CIS countries are sunny batteries are quite expensive, because the state does not support the purchase of such energy sources and does not in any way subsidize the desire of its citizens for “green” energy. Of course, the situation abroad is much better. After all, the United States is interested in the country's transition to environmentally friendly energy sources.

• Another drawback - operating efficiency dependent on weather conditions and climate. For example, solar panels lose their efficiency during cloudy weather or fog. Also when low temperatures, in winter, the efficiency of solar panels decreases. And if the panel is not of good enough quality, then even at high temperatures. Therefore, it is still necessary to support solar panels with some basic energy sources, or use hybrid solar panels. It is also important that solar panels can work differently in different latitudes of the planet. In each individual area, a different amount of solar energy comes out per year. Therefore efficiency solar system It also depends on the location of your home. However, it also depends on the time of day, because at night there is no sun, which means there is no energy production.

• Batteries cannot be used as a source of energy for equipment that consumes a lot of power.

• Solar power system requires large quantity auxiliary equipment. Batteries for energy storage, inverters, as well as a special room for installing the system. For example, nickel-cadmium batteries lose significant power when the temperature drops below zero Celsius.

• In order to produce more power from solar energy, large areas are needed. If we talk about an industrial-scale solar power plant, then these are square kilometers. Of course, when using panels for everyday use, you will not need such areas, but still take this point into account if you want to expand.

These are the pros and cons of solar panels. We hope our article helped you decide what you need.

The Northern United States Renewable Energy Association, in its 2008 publication Solar Energy, writes:

“Of all the available renewable energy sources, solar energy and solar panels cause the least damage to the environment. Electricity produced using solar panels does not have a harmful effect on the air masses. And does not pollute either surface or groundwater, does not deplete natural resources and does not pose a danger to either the animal world or human health.

The only really dangerous effect of this type of energy is associated with the production of some toxic substances and chemicals, such as cadmium and arsenic, which are used in the production of solar panels. But, by and large, these negative effects are minimal in scope if there is a well-thought-out policy in terms of their reuse and proper disposal.

Future

In turn, Ken Zweibel, Director of the Institute for Solar Energy Analysis at the University of Georgia, in Washington, as well as James Mason, Director of a solar panel company, and Vassilis Fenakis, Chief Engineer research work at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, in their joint article from 2007 in the journal Scientific America, they write about plans for the future.

“We believe that by about 2050, solar cell technology will be able to produce almost 3,000 GIGAWATTs of electrical energy, in other words BILLIONS of watts. About 30,000 square miles of rows of solar panels would be mounted facing the sun on fixed stands. Yes, these squares can seem simply incredible. But the battery lines already installed show that the available land required to produce each gigawatt-hour of solar power in the Southeast still requires less than the same amount of energy produced by traditional coal-fired power plants.

Research conducted by the Energy Laboratory in Kolo shows that there are more than enough land resources in the South-East of the country. There is no need to touch areas sensitive to the penetration of machines and people. There is also no need to somehow interfere with the lands in this regard settlements or delving into difficult territories altogether. The beneficial nature of solar energy itself, its environmental friendliness, including reasonable water consumption, reduces concerns about the environmental effects of batteries to a minimum."

In 2008, the Energy Efficiency of Renewable Solar Energy (EERE) posted the following material on its website in the “Why Solar Energy is So Important” section:

“Small electrical substations cause little damage to the environment, just like solar panels. Surprisingly, but so easily producing needed by a person electrical energy, solar panels do not pollute the environment, do not produce emissions and waste that are risky for fauna and flora. This energy production requires neither liquid nor gaseous fuel, it does not need to be transported or burned."

In turn, Vassilis Fenakis, a senior researcher at the Center for Engineering Sciences at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in a 2004 article “Cadmium telluride circulation and its harm during the production of solar cells” in the section on renewable and renewable energy writes:

“If we take a broad view of the problem, the environmental risks from solar panels are minimal. The estimated air emissions from production are 0.02 grams of cadmium telluride per GIGAWATT/hour of electrical energy produced over the life of the solar module, which is very low.

Large-scale use of solar panels does not pose any risk to human health and living beings. And recycling modules that have already served their service life almost completely eliminates the concerns of “green” people about the harmfulness of this type of electrical energy production.

During their operation, solar modules do not produce pollution to Nature, and moreover, gradually replacing traditional types fuels (gas, oil, coal) they bring significant benefits to the environment. Cadmium telluride in solar batteries actually turns out to be much more nature-friendly than all other types of cadmium batteries currently in use, including the famous nickel-cadmium ones.

Cons

However, not everything is so simple in the matter of environmental safety from the huge MASS of solar panels.

In the chapter entitled “Solar and Wind Energy Are Unproductive and Harmful to the Environment,” the author, Paul Driessen, Ph.D. and fellow of the Building Tomorrow Committee, writes:

“Producing 50 MEGAWATTs of electrical energy using gas combustion plants will require approximately 2 to 5 acres of land. To get the same amount of energy from solar modules you will have to cover - attention! - about a THOUSAND acres of land solar panels(and this is even if we take into account the optimistic figures for energy production of 10 watts per square meter or 5% efficiency at peak output).

An equally important problem is to provide free access to trucks with water in order to wash all this “forest” of solar modules. Meeting California's energy needs with solar modules, for example, would require sacrificing tens of thousands of acres of land. But these prairies are called almost the most unique and beautiful examples of real Wildlife. Wild Wild West. This is one of the most majestic and beautiful landscapes in all of America, and it will have to be sacrificed on the altar of solar energy, along with the animal and plant life of this territory.

Californian Energy Commission As part of the public interest in the public energy research (PIER) program, the Electric Energy Research Institute (EPRI) in a November 2003 report entitled “Potential Harm to Health and Environment related to the production and use of solar cells, available on the EPRI website, wrote the following.

“The production of solar cells itself involves the use of certain toxic gases, explosive volatiles, corrosive liquids and suspected carcinogenic – cancer-causing – reagents. The magnitude of possible negative effects on human health and Nature in the case of the production of solar panels varies depending on the toxic materials used, their saturation, intensity of use, and the duration of their exposure to humans under production conditions.”

Spent modules

Disposal of significant volumes of used solar modules in a specific area leads to an increased risk to human health in that area. It is also detrimental to local flora and fauna. Leakage of chemicals from disposed modules has the potential to contaminate local soil and surface water.


Animal and flora in these areas, in close proximity to possible leaks or accidental releases into the atmosphere may be subject to severe exposure. Leaks can lead to explosive concentrations of hazardous substances around the production facilities where modules are produced. And this is a direct and obvious threat to the health of people working here.

The surrounding water, air, and soil will absorb harmful chemical emissions. Contaminated water will poison the soil, and the inhaled air will also be partially poisoned by emissions.

Hit the living

“Emissions of chemical toxic compounds during the production of solar modules lead to a weakening of the resistance of living beings to diseases and a deterioration in their fertility, that is, the ability to produce healthy, full-fledged offspring. There is also increased mortality and poor growth in children and young animals. Intensity and severity negative impact will vary depending on the amount and type of harmful substances released during the production of solar capture modules..."

Based on materials from the Electric Energy Research Institute (EPRI), 2003. California Energy Commission.

In turn, Howard Hayden, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at the University of Connecticut, in the 2005 book “Solar Trap: Why Solar Energy Hasn’t Conquered the World” writes:

“The Barstow, California, solar array, codenamed Solar #2, covers 52.6 hectares (nearly 130 acres) of land and produces approximately 10 megawatts of electricity at peak output. Productivity reaches only 16%. For such installations like “Solar-2”, in order to produce the same amount of energy as a typical 1000 megawatt power plant using conventional fuel, 33,000 (!) hectares of land will need to be covered with solar modules in a year. Or in other words, 127 square miles of area! And this is already serious damage to the environment.

The number of solar panels on our planet is constantly growing, but there is no talk of any qualitative breakthrough in this area yet. Perhaps, when engineers figure out how to reduce the area of ​​​​solar modules and how to organize their self-cleaning, when they remove some volatile dangerous compounds and gases from the production chain, then things will go better. But from an environmental point of view, solar power plants are still not completely harmless to the environment.

Depletion of natural resources and worsening environmental problems— the main reasons for the development of renewable energy sources: